


The Glass Casket

by fannishliss



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who is the mysterious man trapped in the glass casket, and will Rose ever be able to save him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Glass Casket

**title: The Glass Casket**  
author: [](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/)**fannishliss**  
rating: G  
pairing: Rose/The Doctor  
Spoilers/warnings: none -- AU  
word count: 2000  
A/N: another fairy tale!

summary: Who is the mysterious man trapped in the glass casket, and will Rose ever be able to save him?

 

  
Once upon a time a young man and a young woman fell in love and were married.  A tailor by trade, the young man dreamed of bigger things and was always tinkering, hatching improbable schemes and wild ideas. The young woman loved her husband, but when their baby came along, she grew weary of scraping to make ends meet.  He promised that better days were just around the corner, but were they? She couldn't help but fret, and when she fretted it made her cross, and gradually their love was worn away by quarrels.

Still, it came as a shock and a terrible blow when one day the tailor was struck down in the street by a coach and runaway horses.  The woman was left with almost nothing to live on after the tailor's bills were paid, and she and her baby had to leave town and move to the edge of the forest, where she could pick herbs to put in bundles and eke out a living by coming back to town on market days to peddle her wares.  

The little girl was cheerful and a dreamer like her dad, but practical like her mum as well.   She loved to pick flowers to fashion into posies, and as she grew she learned the herbs as well as her mum, and would bring back baskets heaping with greenery and flowers to dry in their little cottage for selling at market.   She was as pretty and sweet as the flowers she picked, and she was called Rose the tailor's daughter, for folks in town still remembered her clever dad. Rose helped her mother sell herbs and flowers when she was little, and all the good townsfolk would buy, for none could resist her charming smile.  

When she grew old enough to stay behind she begged her mother for time alone. Her mum didn't understand it, loving the company and bustle of town and all the friends she visited, but she granted her daughter's wish since the girl worked so hard every day, picking herbs and flowers to sell and tying them up in the tidiest little bundles.

Bidding her mother farewell, Rose would wait until her mum had vanished around the corner of the path, and when she'd counted to a hundred and eleven three different ways, she'd let out a piercing whistle.

That was when a fearsome beast would bound out of the forest and throw itself down in front of Rose like a fawning puppy, eagerly smiling up at her through slavering fangs and beaming at her with its eerie yellow eyes.  Rose had befriended an enormous she-wolf.  

"Bad Wolf!" she would cry with joy, the pet name she'd given the animal as a child when she'd found and released the wolf from a cruel hunter's trap, and nursed her back to health with bowls of milk she filched from her own breakfast and herbs she'd picked and poulticed with her own hands.  "Oh, dear Bad Wolf! Mum is gone and won't be back till evening Sunday.  Shall we go and have a look at the Man?"

The wolf would stare at her and pant, her grin seeming to give assent.  Rose threw her arms around the big animal's blue-black coat and hugged her with joy. It was a solitary life in the cottage by the forest, and though Rose had a few friends in town that she'd gotten to know on market days, her mother missed her life there more than Rose did, and Rose was happiest bounding through the forest with her secret friend, Bad Wolf.

The day had dawned clear and bright and Rose's mum had gotten an early start, helped by Rose bundling everything up, making breakfast, and clearing it away.  Now the sun still hadn't risen very high in the sky when Rose and Bad Wolf went off toward the mountain, the pool, and the Man.

It was a long walk through the woods to the foot of the mountain, and then a strenuous hike along the stream as the land grew steep.  Up and up, up the steep mountain, that seemed to reach almost as high as the stars. It was night by the time Rose and Bad Wolf emerged from the treeline to see the full moon rising between the peaks.   Moonlight gleamed off the rocks as Rose and Bad Wolf picked their way.

At last they came to the hollow in the rocks where they usually spent the night when they made the journey.  The wolf sniffed the hollow to make sure nothing dangerous had already nested there, and then she whined a wolfish tune letting Rose know to creep in.  Rose did, and with the enormous wolf keeping her warm, the girl was soon fast asleep.

In the morning, the day was even more beautiful than the last, and Rose ate a biscuit from her pocket and drank from the clear running stream.  Only a little bit farther to the pool, but the way grew more difficult and wouldn't have been safe in the dark.

The mountain had grown so steep that Rose had to clamber on all fours in places. Bad Wolf picked her way carefully among the rocks and boulders.  At last the ground leveled out again and a high, hidden pasture was revealed. There, at the lowest point of it, was a pond, clear and deep, its ice-cold water glowing more blue than the sky.

The pool was enchanted, of course.  Rose shivered with excitement in the cool summer breeze.  Maybe this was would be the day at last when the spell would break and she'd meet the Man face to face.

Rose always felt in awe of the pool and its enchantment, but Bad Wolf had no such qualms. She leapt and capered and whined and splashed at the water's edge.  Rose thought the wolf wanted to dive down into the water, but the pool was too deep, though the water was clear as crystal.  Even through the depths, she could easily see the Man and the strange shimmering visions that drifted through the waters around him.  

Rose sat  cross-legged amid the smooth round pebbles of the shore.  

"Brought you a flower," she said, pulling a simple white rose from her pocket and dropping it into the water.  It floated for a moment, and then began to sink, spiralling down and down until it landed on the crystal box where the man lay in his dreaming.

Rose watched the flower fall, pondering the wonders of the enchantment.

When Bad Wolf had first led her up the mountain to the enchanted pool, all those years ago, she'd been terrified and had tried to dive in to save the old white-haired Man imprisoned in the box.  Wet and miserable, she'd failed, unable to hold her breath long enough to dive so deep.

Over the years, the Man had changed his appearance again and again, but she knew it was always the same Man.  How she knew she couldn't have said, but she knew it in her heart, and she was somehow certain Bad Wolf knew it too.

More than that, she was sure that her visits were a comfort to the Man, though he never seemed to awaken.  She'd seen his face contorting as he dreamed, his limbs thrashing in response to the vague and wavering images that floated in the water around his crystal coffin.  

Everything grew calm when she appeared, as though the enchantment was lessened by her gazing down at him through the surface of the water.

"Oh, Bad Wolf," she sighed.  "When will he awaken? You've been leading me here for so many years.  He's changed again and again, and I'm nineteen years old now, and soon mum will want me to move with her back to town to try our luck at something else besides herbs and possets. But I love it here, with you, and the Man, and I don't love town life the way mum does."

Unthinking she dropped a tiny pebble into the water to watch it slowly career and sink till it dropped onto the man's casket with an imagined tap.  

And he opened his eyes and stared up at her.  After so many years, he'd finally awakened!

She stared down at him in surprise and awe.  

He gave a little wave.

Weakly, she waved back.

They smiled tentatively at one another, her smile breathless, his grave.  She wondered if he'd known she was there all along.  Hadn't she sometimes seemed to sense him, as though he were about to awaken?  But before this day, he never had.

Bad Wolf began to bay and leap about, nudging Rose with her nose.

"You want me to dive and try to open it?  It's never worked before!"

Rose had gotten better at diving over the years.  She'd grown skilled at holding her breath, but she'd never been able to pry open the sealed casket lid before running short of air and drifting back up to the surface.

The Man in his box began making a series of incomprehensible gestures and nodding vigorously.

Rose shrugged out of her dress, and clad only in her shift, took a deep breath, and dove.

With strong and elegant strokes she soon reached the bottom.

Through the glass she stared into his eyes.  They were lovely eyes, just as clear and wise as she'd always imagined.  The sorrows and ordeals of his dreams still haunted the depths of his gaze, but he smiled at her and she smiled back.  

She pulled at the lid.  He flipped a catch.

Golden light poured out of the casket and illuminated the water all around. Bubbles obscured Rose's vision and wild music like Bad Wolf's song filled her brain.  She felt a strong hand clasping her own, and she felt lips sucking air from hers as together they kicked to the surface.  

They broke free of the water with a mighty splash.  The golden light seemed to bubble and sing with a life of its own.

Bad Wolf dove into the water and the water rushed to meet her.  Golden light hissed and roiled around her, until it grew too bright for Rose to see. Blinking through the glare, Rose thought she saw a beautiful woman, smiling, with a finger to her lips, but when Rose blinked, both woman and wolf were gone.

A tall blue box stood on the edge of the pool, where before there had only been pebbles and softly lapping waves.

"Rose, you saved me," the Man smiled gratefully. Rose felt she could see nothing but his beautiful eyes and his beaming smile.

"I've been trying my whole life," Rose said. "But what's your name?  Why were you trapped there?  Why do you change so often? and where's my wolf?"

"Good questions," the Man laughed. "I'm the Doctor — and one thing  I can promise you — there's plenty of time for answers."

"And what's that box?  and how did you live for so long inside a crystal casket?"

"Bigger on the inside," he said.  "Come and see."

He opened the door of the blue box and the golden light inside seemed to ripple like the waves.  In her head Rose heard the howl of her wolf, and she didn't understand, but her heart had always led her truly.  She looked at the Man — the Doctor — and smiled.

"Ready for some real adventures?" he asked.

She was!

And when Rose had been adventuring a year and a day, she knew the Doctor's name,  where her wolf had gone, and how much bigger everything was on the inside. They found her mum at the market, and Rose showed her the gardens and the library and the Cloister and all around the box that had helped the Doctor heal from lifetimes of hurt, that had been a wolf and a woman and was now so much more, ringing with laughter and celebration— and they all lived happily ever after.


End file.
